


Thickets

by amberwing



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-28
Updated: 2014-08-28
Packaged: 2018-02-15 02:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2212866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amberwing/pseuds/amberwing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The eluvian isn't quite alive, but nor is it dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thickets

The eluvian isn't quite alive, but nor is it dead. Merrill knows it better than most things, now, and she can tell. It--and calling it an _it_ seems inappropriate sometimes, because it has its own strange consciousness--watches her when it thinks she's not paying attention. 

She breathes fog onto the mirror and writes in careful script: _What do you want?_ Her letters are the purposeful footprints of sparrows in dust, hunting for seeds.

She's searching for answers, for some faint breath of validation--that someone can hear her, that finally the eluvian has been healed. Sometimes she dreams that Mahariel will answer, in letters that sprawl beside Merrill's own. Marethari had taught Merrill all the old letters as best she could; the bits of other languages stick out like scars where chunks of alphabet have been lost. Only Keepers were taught to write, but Merrill had shown Mahariel their names in the dirt. Her hands had been loose, fluid, like a bow yet unstrung beside Merrill's own taut, thin knuckles. Warm and calloused and dark as Merrill traced the letters for her. 

The eluvian does not reflect. It is a blank space, and Merrill's message fades into its surface until nothing remains.

She sleeps pressed close to the wall, a habit gleaned from a lifetime of travel; the youngest children of the clan would rest in the aravels as they journeyed, packed tight as kindling.

Merrill tucks herself against the wall and wishes for the curve of another body against her, the comforting pressure of a spine against her belly, the steadiness of another heartbeat syncopated to her own. Sometimes she dreams that she is back home, listening to the sound of wind in trees, of halla whispering to one another, of elves speaking the old tongue.

The eluvian watches her as she aches for this; she can feel it through her closed eyelids, the subtle shift of its attention like a blanket being slowly drawn down her body. Her skin tightens with goosebumps.

Mahariel stands within the mirror in Merrill's dreams. She knows she is dreaming, that this is the Beyond and merely a wish of her sleeping mind, but that doesn't stop her from drawing herself out from under her dream-blanket, pressing her feet to the packed dirt floor. 

" _Lethallan_ ," Mahariel says. Merrill pads to the eluvian and presses her hand to its surface. Mahariel's eyes crinkle as she smiles, mirroring the gesture. The glass warms against Merrill's palm, and it feels only natural to pull Mahariel free, draw her out from the cool surface step by careful step until she holds the other elf's hand and wrist. The eluvian is just a portal now, its edges gone soft and smoky, and Mahariel is soon standing before her, shadow drifting from her like falling leaves. She smells as Merrill remembers: of sweat and leather and leaf mold. There is dirt smudged on her nose and twigs are tangled in her hair.

"What do you want?" Merrill asks again, and she can't stop her voice from cracking. "Why are you here?"

Mahariel presses her palm back into Merrill's, and her flesh is warm and rough with sword callouses. Their fingers tangle together. "Because you wish for me," she says, guiding their knotted hands to her lips. Merrill doesn't know if she remembers them being so dark, as if she had been eating blackberries in the world behind the mirror's surface, and she certainly doesn't remember the softness of them against her knuckles, Mahariel's downy breath. "And what I want," Mahariel murmurs, each word a lick of hot damp against Merrill's skin, the barest flicker of tongue, "is to help you dream."

"Spirit," Merrill whispers, but does not pull away. "This was not part of our bargain."

Mahariel smiles at her, all thickets of freckles and dark hair, and replies, "I will make allowances for you, _emma vhenan_."

The eluvian does not reflect. Merrill merely sees its darkness as they move, hands entwined, back to her bed. The gilded frame is not for the glass but their bodies and the way they entangle one another, thickets and tangles and thorns.


End file.
